Thanks to Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana is poised to loose one of its current congressional districts after the 2010 Census. Due to the fact that the storm more proportionally depopulated the New Orleans portions of the Second Congressional District, one conservative political organization has suggested that the current Black Majority District should be drawn into the Caucasian swing seat currently held by Charlie Melançon(D-Napoleonville).
Louisiana Family Forum Action President Gene Mills introduced the plan to legislators and media outlets throughout Louisiana on Thursday, March 19, explaining that the proposal is “a starting point for discussion on how the congressional lines should be re-drawn.”
LFF Action is a conservative, yet non-partisan tax exempt 501c3 organization, but Mills has close relationships with senior Republicans like Senator David Vitter and GOP Chairman Roger Villere. The plan as constituted would combine the seat of a sitting Democratic Congressman with a Black-majority district. According to the plan, the more Caucasian and conservative parts of the district would be drawn into surrounding seats currently held by Republicans Charles Boustany, Bill Cassidy, and Steve Scalise.
“It is expected that Louisiana will lose a congressional seat after the 2010 census. Our plan takes that likelihood into consideration, combining the current District Three and District Two Seats to reflect the large population loss from Hurricane Katrina,” said Mills. But, it would also have the effect of turning the Sixth and Seventh Congressional Districts from swing seats, able to be won by either party, into safe Republican seats.
More specifically, it would lower the percentage of African-American registration from the Second District’s estimated 62 percent to just greater than 50 percent. Mills defends the plan by pointing out that Hurricane Katrina already lowered the percentages of not only minority registration but basic population in the flooded areas.
“The remaining five districts remain basically unchanged and give continuity to Louisiana’s historical districts, while maintaining a majority ‘minority district’,” he said.
Political consultant Mike Bayham points out to The Louisiana Weekly that North Louisiana has actually lost a more significant portion of the state’s population over the last decade than the New Orleans Metro area. “There should only be on Congressional District that stretches from Shreveport to Monroe.”
Those Fourth and Fifth Congressional districts are currently held by Republican Congressmen Rodney Alexander and John Fleming.
Previously, the U.S. Justice Department prevented states from diluting minority voting strength under the 1965 Voting Rights Act. However, in a recent 5-4 Supreme Court ruling Bartlett v. Strickland, Justice Anthony Kennedy said the landmark civil rights legislation doesn’t require states to draw “crossover” districts, which would include enough voters who would vote for minority candidates to allow the minority bloc to elect a minority candidate.
Commentators immediately suggested that this could influence the redistricting process in Louisiana, the only former “Jim Crow” state likely to lose a Congressional district. Not only would merging the 2nd and 3rd Districts provide Democrat Charlie Melançon an easier seat in which to win re-election, providing a reason for white Democrats to support the plan, it would also create a swing seat with a low enough African-American political registration that current GOP incumbent Joseph Cao might have an outside chance at re-election in 2012.
Should a third-party Black contender run in the November 2010, dividing the minority vote between he and the Democrat nominee, Cao could conceivably win re-election. Long term, though, it would be nearly impossible for a GOP candidate to hold such a strongly drawn minority seat.
The district Mills proposed could give Cao a fighting chance, however.
There is a historical precedent for the congressional district map that Mills has suggested. The newly drawn South East Louisiana District would closely resemble the seat once held by Democrat Hale Boggs in the 1950s.
Members of the Legislative Black Caucus have suggested that the Second District should stretch along the Mississippi River from New Orleans along the Banks of the Mississippi River to Baton Rouge, similar to the Minority/Majority Public Service Commission seat currently held by Lambert Boissiere III.
The Re-districting proposal and map can be accessed on the web at www.lafamilyforum.org /redistrict.
This article was originally published in the March 30, 2009 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper |
